My sex bunny friend Stanley's mum was recently hospitalised.
Mrs Monica Ong was getting out of the family car when she lost her footing because she wanted to avoid stepping on a snail.
That poor kind-hearted soul ended up not only twisting her ankle but also falling sideways landing on her left hip.
"Ouch!" Carl the dense one typed in the group chat, his response for once, matching the topic.
"The doctors say my mum didn't hurt her hip," Stanley wrote.
Carl then began typing.
"She hurt her spine instead and doctors are now saying she may not be able to walk for a while!"
"Yay! Good for her!" Carl's message appeared with unfortunate timing.
During Mrs Ong's first few days in hospital, Stanley had been busy shuttling between work and home and Mount Elizabeth Hospital Novena.
Stanley's dad, with his ageing eyes, no longer drives so Stanley's been the main chauffeur, ferrying his dad to the hospital in the morning, and then back home in the evening.
What's more, Stanley's sister isn't in town so the burden is all Stanley's to bear.
Every day, Stanley has to talk to the doctor to find out one surprise after another.
All she needs is occupational therapy and physiotherapy.
Oh, no... we think a fragment of her spine is edged on her nerves.
We think she may not be able to walk for a while. She's getting weaker by the day.
We think she may need surgery.
"Caregiving is very tiring. I am so exhausted," Stanley wrote.
"Why is this happening to my mum when all she wants to do is to avoid stepping on a snail. Life is very unfair. My advice to all mothers would be to just step on the bloody snail."
Carl wisely chose not to type anything rashly until he gets a final, final assessment of the situation, just in case.
Juggling work, taking care of a loved one, and handling day-to-day matters at home is no fun.
Add to that, the scary thought of your mum not being able to walk for a while.
What does that even mean?
Will she recover? Will she forever be bedridden? Will she have to be wheeled around?
No doctors dare to commit.
My university classmate Sasa - who had not met Stanley in person but has heard many saucy stories through me - wrote this after learning about Mrs Ong's plight.
"Sasa to Stanley: Not easy caring for a sick parent. Been through that and it was tough. Hope your mum recovers well".
When I copied and pasted that message to Stanley - who knows Sasa as my wealthy classmate with her designer apartment - he replied me with an icon of a beating heart.
My poor Stanley.
He hadn't even had time to reply me in full sentences of late, what more make time to meet us.
Part of me feels really bad that I am not by his side given that I'm sometimes bound by COVID laws in Singapore so I make myself absent so that Stanley doesn't need to worry about overcrowding at the hospital.
And I'm guilty that the only comfort I can give him is limited.
Which got me thinking about how I can be a more supportive friend.
Thankfully, there's J my loveable partner.
In J's words, the role of a supportive friend is not to keep asking and asking and asking about a situation.
Just because we text someone every day asking "how are things" doesn't make it easier for the person nor automatically makes us supportive.
In fact, it makes things worse, J says.
"Imagine after a long day and you get such messages and you have to reply them? Now imagine if Stanley has 10 of such concerned friends... it's not going to help," J said over a video call.
How wise.
Very often, we express our concern too literally, sometimes forgetting that our intense questioning can be overbearing to those we care about.
Yes, the textbook act of posing questions to those we care about can mean that we are concerned.
But at the end of the day, the only person benefiting from feeling good about this, could well be only ourselves, not the ones we care about.
I shared my thoughts with Stanley over one videocall.
He was sitting in his car, spacing out.
"Wow, J is so wise," Stanley said.
"One good way of being supportive to me is really not to keep asking me about my mum.
"Distract me... talk to me about other things.
"Better yet, I appoint you to be my official pimp. Help me arrange one-night-stands. I'm too busy for that now," Stanley says, forcing himself to laugh.
"Tell them the caregiver is sick of his role and the only thing he wants to give now involves his mouth and his hand," Stanley says, inflating and deflating one side of his cheek in slow-mo, along with a coordinated hand movement.
"And tell them the caregiver is tired of giving, and is ready to receive," he added, making an effort to take his phone all the way to his buttocks to make his point.
No comments:
Post a Comment